


Come Back

by le_chat_vilain



Series: The Joker and the Thief [13]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, Gotham City Sirens (Comics), Suicide Squad (2016)
Genre: Angst, Blood, F/M, Grief, Medical Procedures, Sick Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-16
Updated: 2015-11-16
Packaged: 2018-05-01 21:41:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,314
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5221922
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/le_chat_vilain/pseuds/le_chat_vilain
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Blaire enlists the help of Mr. Freeze and Harley in an attempt to resurrect the Joker, but as always, there’s a catch.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Come Back

**Author's Note:**

> Is anyone ever really dead in Gotham? This was the chapter that made this story run even longer because I just wasn’t ready to let go yet lol I think I made it hurt more though in the long run, we’ll see.
> 
> Soundtrack: Come Back by Xavier Rudd

True to his word, Freeze meets us by the roadside, and we pile into his van, speeding back to wherever it is he has his lab these days. I don’t know, I’m not paying attention to where we’re going. I’m just trying to hold it together.

When we arrive, one of his minions issues us with fur coats to keep the crippling cold at bay. Even with the heavy hide cloaked around me, I still can’t stop shaking, be it from the cold or shock remains to be seen. A pair of minions take Jay’s body and follow Freeze into what looks like some kind of operating theatre, and I try to tag along only to be stopped by two more.

“Where are you taking him? I’m not leaving him again!” I shout at Freeze, but he ignores me, instead scrubbing in. “Freeze!”

“Hey, hey, it’s okay, you gotta let him work, kid,” Harley soothes, arm around me and forcing me to look at her with her hand on my cheek. I must reek of desperation, because when she looks into my eyes the outpouring of sympathy from her own is almost enough to break me again.

“Harley, please.” She knows what I’m asking: scrub in, make sure he does everything he can. I know she’ll say yes, I know she still loves him, I know she loves me. I know what a cruel thing it is to ask, but I don’t care.

“Okay, okay, just…I’ll keep you as up to date as I can,” she concedes, and kisses me on the forehead before following Freeze into the sterile room.

The doors swing shut and though they don’t make a sound, the silence somehow booms in my ears. I slump down against the wall, hugging my knees to my chest just staring at them, waiting for any kind of news. Tears run down my cheeks intermittently, try as I may to stave them off. It could be minutes later it could have been hours, but eventually Selina appears with a mug of tea.

“Hey, Kid, how you holding up?” she asks me, and I ignore her. I just keep staring. “That good, huh?”

She slides down to sit next to me, placing the mug at my feet, and in a very un-Selina like gesture, reaches out to take my hand.

“Freeze is a damn good doctor. If there’s a spark left in him, he’ll get him going again,” she reassures me. “Promise.”

“Why are you being so…nice? Where’s the lecture? I know you’ve got one waiting, so come on, out with it.” Selina has no reason to be this kind to me, she hates him, and yet here she is being pragmatic and trying to save him and comfort me. “You hate him, don’t tell me you aren’t at least a little bit pleased.”

“You’re right. I do hate him, but I’m not happy about any of this. This isn’t about him, kid, it’s about you.”

I finally look at her, confused.

“You can be a pain in my ass, and you make some frankly, fucking stupid choices, but I still love you. I might not trust you, I might not always like you, but you’re still like a sister, and I always look out for my family,” she explains. “Whether I hate him or not doesn’t matter, you love him. And… if I’m being really honest…in a twisted way I think you’re good for each other. I mean you’re a fucking terrible influence on each other too, don’t get me wrong there, but…you’re…I dunno…more human somehow. Both of you.”

Her sincerity completely disarms me for a moment, and I am at a loss for words. Then I see something hidden beneath the surface; fear.

“And you’re afraid…of what I’ll become without him…what I’ll do…aren’t you?”

She purses her lips and lets out a long breath through her nose, regarding me with a defeated kind of awe, the same way she always does when I see right through her the way I so often do.

“Yeah. Yeah, I am. And I’m not stupid, I don’t wanna be on the wrong side of it.”

The doors swing open and Harley sticks her head through.

“Hey kid, what blood type are ya?” she asks.

“O-Negative,” I tell her, jumping to my feet faster than the Flash, and shrugging off the coat, knowing full well why she’s asking. He needs blood. I’m the universal donor. I don’t care if it’s reckless given that I was nearly electrocuted to death earlier, he can have as much as he needs.

“God, he’s one lucky son of a bitch today,” she mutters, ushering me in.

She preps me for the transfusion, laying me down on a gurney next to him. He’s so pale, even for him, and I reach out and lace my fingers through his; they’re cold as ice. There’s all kinds of machines hooked up to his body, electrodes, tubes, IV lines everywhere, but the only one I care about is the one making that regular beep, with that line rising in time with the sound across the screen.

He’s alive.

I don’t know how much they take, I don’t really care. Harley gives me a quick once over after, shining a flashlight in my eyes, taking my blood pressure and checking the wounds on my temples before handing me a lollipop.

“Jeeze, how high was the voltage you reckon?” she asks, eyeing me with curiosity as she checks my reflexes.

“Enough to make me seize…I think I passed out at one point I don’t remember exactly, it’s all pretty hazy. I think my nose was bleeding…” I tell her.

“Wow…are you sure?”

“Well…not entirely, but I definitely seized first treatment.”

“That’s…how many treatments did he do?”

“I dunno…around three I think?”

“Impossible…kid…you should be dead after that kinda fryin’, you know that right?” she says, astonished.

“I know.”

“You’re one tough cookie…both of ya are.”

I look over at him, relieved to see a little more colour in his cheeks.

“Is he gonna make it?” I ask again, marginally less terrified of the answer this time.

“Well, there is good news, and there is also bad news,” Freeze pipes up from behind me, peeling off his bloody gloves and flinging them into a bin. “Which would you like first?”

“I don’t care, just…tell me.”

“First…I need to know something: how many kidneys do you have?” he asks me in earnest.

“Two…why does that-”

“Okay, then good news is, I can definitely fix him…if you give him one of your kidneys,” he begins.

“What? Okay…yeah, sure…and the bad news?” I brace myself. I don’t know what’s involved with a kidney transplant or being a donor for that matter, but I got him into this mess, so I’m going to do my fucking best to get him out of it.

“The bad news…” he glances at Harley quickly and she takes my hand. “The bad news is, that was no ordinary bullet.”

“What do you mean no ordinary bullet?” I press.

“It…we think it was loaded with somethin’,” Harley pipes up. “We won’t know for sure until we run a couple a tests, but if it’s what we think it is…”

“What do you think it is?”

“Some time ago, before Dr. Crane developed the fear toxin, back when they were still colleagues, he and Dr. Arkham were working on a substance that would…neutralize those exposed to it if necessary. It was to be used as a means to keep inmates under control, but the human trials…well they didn’t exactly end well.” Freeze elaborates.

“A kill switch serum?” I ask, trying to piece together why this would pose such a problem if Arkham was as dead as he looked. “But it needs to be triggered right? Jeremiah looked pretty fucking dead, I don’t see how that’s really a threat now.”

“Yes, and also no. In the beginning it seemed as though the trials were a success, the trigger serum was effective. That is until non-triggered inmates started to expire at random.”

“See, hun, even if we fix him, even if Arkham’s dead and there ain’t nobody around to trigger it…there’s a chance…he might…you know…” Harley starts.

“He’s Schrodinger’s cat.”

“Exactly.”

The numbness creeps in again as I try to process the information. I give him a kidney, they fix him, he might drop dead a couple of days later.

But I’ll still get those couple of days.

“How long until you can do the surgery?”

“You will need to recoup, but if I can find another blood donor or two then maybe in around 12-24 hours, best case scenario,” Freeze tells me. “He’s stable for now, but you need to rest. And before you ask me, he’s in an induced coma, so no, he’s not going to wake up any time soon.”

“Fine, but I’m sleeping here. I’m not leaving him,” I insist.

“Whaddaya reckon ice man? Can ya set up a cot for her in here?” Harley asks Freeze, and he gives her a displeased stare. “Trust me when I say it’s easier to give her what she wants.”

“Alright, fine.”

“Thank you,” I tell him with sincerity.

“You have to clean up first though, you look like shit,” he tells me with a weak smile as his hand claps down on my shoulder.

“I’ll stay with him, kid, go on, the man has a point,” Harley assures me.  

I reluctantly leave him and do as I’m told, knowing Freeze indeed does have a point. I’m covered in blood and grime, and it does feel good to wash the asylum away. They didn’t have any clothes other than a spare pair of Freeze’s scrubs for me to change into, so I look like a kid playing doctor in her daddy’s clothes by the time I’m done, but I’m clean and I can go back.

Harley kept her word and is waiting there when I get back, just staring down at him arms folded and as stern a look as I’ve ever seen on her face.  They’ve slid some kind of mattress underneath him and cleaned him up as well. She smiles at me half heartedly when I enter and pulls me in for a hug as I approach.

“I had Doc turn up the heat for ya so ya both don’t freeze ta death,” she says before releasing me.

“Be honest, Harls, this serum, how bad were those trials exactly?”

“Well…lemme put it this way, the odds ain’t in his favour,” she informs me.

“How long then, ball park, if we get through the transplant?”

“None of the test subjects made it past six months. If I recall correctly from readin’ the files, longest was five months eighteen days.”

Like a landslide it all comes crashing back, that unique feeling of impending grief, knowing the end is coming but not knowing when. Knowing you’ve lost a person before you actually lose them; the exact same feeling I had when I was just 11 years old and my mum got her diagnosis. I can feel my lip trembling and I take his hand, being careful of the IV line, and slip my fingers between his again, closing my eyes and trying not to let it defeat me. I tell myself I’m not a child anymore, no more tears.

“Hey, you know we could still be wrong, one of Freeze’s guys is runnin’ the tests now,” she tries to comfort me but I’m fixated.

“When it happens…will it be quick?”

“Yeah. He won’t see it comin’…his heart’ll just give out and…well…” she stammers, clearly unsure of how to break such news without seeming clinical. “Blaire?”

So rarely is it that she uses my name, in fact, I don’t recall the last time she did.

“Yeah?”

“You should know, we’re testin’ you too.”

“Makes sense,” I reply. Of course, who knows what he injected me with while I was out cold for however long. It should make me feel terrified, that I might be dying, but it’s oddly comforting; if we’ve both got this in our blood then at least we’ll know whoever goes first, the other won’t be far behind. Then it occurs to me. “Wait, his blood, the blood you’re testing, did you take it before or after the transfusion?”

“Before, duh, don’t worry. Though, we weren’t aware of the potential…contamination until after we pulled you in.”

Well that’s something I suppose, it’s not like I will have definitely given it to him if he tests positive, not that it makes me feel any less guilty. It was my fault he was even there in the first place. I should have listened to him, I should have trusted him and his judgment, but instead I did exactly what he told me not to and now look at where we are.

“You gonna be okay here? I gotta pee somethin’ fierce and, well…” She looks down at the dried blood on her scrubs and I nod at her, giving her leave. She gives me one last squeeze before taking it, and finally I’m alone.

Alone with my guilt, my grief, and that ever thunderous silence. I don’t try to hold them back when the tears come this time, I slide onto the gurney beside him, in the tiny sliver of space that’s there, gingerly resting my head on his arm. I trace the tattoo with my fingertips again, the little black heart with a B in the negative space, and hope with all my being that this works.

“I’m sorry, baby. I’m so, so fucking sorry. Please come back to me…don’t leave me here…please…”


End file.
